


Strange Girl in Familiar Landscape

by misura



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Everyone thinks we're safe."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Girl in Familiar Landscape

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _Chloe/Rush, nightmares_

_"Everyone thinks we're safe,"_ Chloe says, and Rush knows better than to argue the point - knows better, also, than to agree. A little bit of fear, at the right moment, can be useful.

A little bit of fear, at the right moment, can be _used_. He'd have thought a senator's daughter to know this, to be more capable of controlling herself, controlling, if not the emotions of those around her, at least the emotions she displays herself. It is, he admits to himself, a bit of a disappointment.

_"Everyone thinks we're safe. But we're not, are we?"_

Chloe's got a big, strong Marine to defend her, and to stare at her, fully incapable of understanding.

People love her, feel for her. She's got a lot of goodwill, many people making excuses, wanting to think the best of her, willing to make allowances, excuses, irrational decisions.

Rush has gotten none of those things out of their little adventure. Not for him the sympathetic looks, the spun glass treatment, the kid gloves. He wouldn't have wanted those anyway, so probably, it's just as well.

On the other hand, he could have done without the dreams.

_"No. We're not."_

 

The problem with Chloe, Rush thinks, is that she's sensitive enough to know when people are pulling away, but not intelligent enough to either manipulate them into staying or (better yet) realize that by the end of the day, they're not important.

It's slightly ironic, really. A few short weeks ago, Rush would have said _Chloe_ wasn't important.

Being held captive by aliens tends to change one's perspective a bit, it seems - although, really, it's not so much the captivity as it is the changes. Rush has simply been wrung dry of everything he knows, everything he's ever seen or thought or felt; intrusive and invasive and highly uncomfortable, and not an experience he'd ever care to repeat, but it's done with now. Over. Put behind him.

(He feels them rooting around in his mind when he sleeps, when he dreams of floating in the tank again, utterly helpless. He wakes up hating them, because he hasn't got any use for too much fear.)

Chloe, in a sense, never really got away.

Rush wouldn't envy her for that, except that 'never really got away' in this instance seems to translate to 'was elevated to a higher level of intelligence and understanding'. (She doesn't look at it that way, of course. Herd mentality will never allow her to look at it that way.)

"Hey."

Envy, of course, is pointless. Turning it into simple want instead isn't much better, but at least Rush can do _something_ with that. Courting comes with a plan, a strategy, stages. Her new insights might help him, a little, speed things up that Eli can't quite be trusted to look at without blabbing.

"Oh, hi." She looks tired, Rush thinks. Fighting losing battles will do that to a person.

Bad dreams, too, naturally. "Everything all right?"

There's just her and him. As safe as they're going to get - but then, 'safety' is a relative term, these days.

"Honestly? Not really."

It's more truth than most other people have gotten from her, Rush thinks. "I know the feeling," he says.

"Yeah." There's a softness about her, a vulnerability. It's her best weapon - at least when there are humans involved. Especially in crises, people will respond to emotion, much more than to logic.

With a bit of guidance, Rush feels he might use that to his advantage.

Not now, not yet, but give it a bit of time, and he'll get there. "Well, if you ever need to talk, you know where to find me. Don't be a stranger."

"Thanks," she says, but Rush thinks they both hear the 'but no thanks' there at the end.

It's fine, really. If this would be too easy, it would hardly be much of a distraction.

 

Scott keeps pulling away, even when he's trying not to. There's a subtle shifting going on, though, from love to duty, to a sense of obligation for the sake of feelings no longer quite there. It's not entirely Scott's fault, really (Rush can afford to be generous); it's simple, limited human nature to be repelled by things that are alien to it.

Rush's intellect has allowed him to rise above that, to look at the universe clearly. Few people are capable of achieving that kind of view, though, and very few of them are aboard _Destiny_.

He's not sure what Chloe sees, when she looks at herself. _If_ she looks at herself.

(And he's not sure, if she truly transforms physically, if she really ends up looking like one of _them_ , whether or not he'll be able to keep a firm grip on the difference between his dreams and reality. He _is_ sure that he can't afford not to.)

 

Time passes, and life and all the inevitable little things that come with it go on.

Rush copes the way he always has. It's never been easy, but it's the only game in town, so to speak, and he knows how to play it so well that he might as well be asleep - except that if he were, he wouldn't be dealing with all the small day-to-day annoyances the way he does.

Chloe doesn't change back to who she was, the way everyone seems to be feeling she should, if by no other virtue than that they think she deserves to. The wisdom of the many: as banal and small-minded as always.

 

Rush dreams of what has been and what empirical evidence suggests might happen again.

Chloe dreams of what might be, what she might become.

"I don't want to fall asleep," she tells him, but this time, she doesn't look tired. Her eyes are a little bit red, but there's a sense of determination in them, some emotion that is not at all soft.

It's a little past what passes for 'the middle of the night' and she's come knocking on his door in a state that might charitably be described as 'very casually dressed'.

"Then don't," Rush says simply. Mildly. He might mention the human body has its needs, and its unfortunate tendency to impose and overcome the spirit.

He might tell her the grass, back on Earth, is usually green.

"I don't want to sleep and I don't want to look at your stupid equations."

He might tell her sex is just physical, and (perhaps more relevantly) that it's likely to leave her sleepy. He might even tell her to go look for Scott, except that in spite of what people might think, Rush makes an effort to never be deliberately cruel. Ruthlessly practical, yes; needlessly cruel, no.

"I understand," he says.

(The thing that surprised him a little: it's not a complete lie anymore.)


End file.
